The Pirate King
by Fabius Maximus
Summary: The Colonies locked themselves in after the Armistice. Not everyone is okay with that. Unfortunately, they'll find that their plans are derailed by the Destruction of the Colonies and their fight for survival...
1. Chapter 1

_Five Years Before the Fall._

"Welcome home son!" Thomas Kinkaid said as James entered the luxurious office. "How did your pirate raid go?"

"Oh, it was all over the nets on Caprica dad," James said. "The ruthless pirate who raided sixteen ships and put the Caprica Gold Star Line out of business. I heard that the President himself was proclaiming that the Colonial Navy will, quote: hunt me down like the murderous scum I am. Unquote."

"And our clients?"

"Happy as hell," James said, gesturing at a glass of ambrosia, "mind if I?"

"Go ahead, you've earned it."

James tossed the drink back and gave an appreciative sigh. "In any case, I carried out the contract like it was requested. Contrary to the President, no deaths among the crew, and just enough knocked heads to make it look good. Between the insurance settlement and selling off the ships, our friends at Gold Star should be able to make quite a tidy profit."

"Good."

"Not entirely," James said quietly. "Not everyone is as dumb as Adar, and we're racking up a fair number of suspiciously non-bloody raids followed by insurance settlements. I'm certain some people are already curious."

"So what do you think?"

"Either hit someone— for real, or ease up on our business."

"And hitting them for real?"

"Dad, we both know that killing is part of this business. Someone intrudes into our turf we fight 'em. But bringing civilians into it? Bad business. The Fleet might not care if we kill each other— pull a massacre on a civvie ship and you'll have a battlestar looking for you."

"I'm not worried about battlestars."

James laughed, "That's the first time I've heard someone say that!"

"Well, you should give it some thought. Most of our ships, a battlestar is like swatting flies with a cannon and it can only be one place at a time. Nope, I'm more worried about this." He handed James a document, with an impressive number of SECRET tags on it.

Flipping it open, James read it and frowned. "Cutting the fleet? Reducing the number of battlestars in favor of lighter ships…fleet can't like that."

"They won't, because they're waiting for the scary Cylons to come back. They won't. Robots don't need to breath so I figure they left this part of the galaxy long ago— why worry? We locked ourselves in with that damned agreement. They're probably laughing themselves silly wherever they are."

James nodded. The Colonies had abandoned dozens of worlds and it was still a serious crime to move beyond the armistice line.

"But this is what scares me son— one battlestar we can avoid, but this… you can afford a LOT of police cutters for one battlestar. Hell, it's just continuing the trend…before you were born, right after the Cylon war, the Fleet didn't care what we did, so long as we didn't pull out nukes. Now, we have to be careful even showing an armed ship, in another ten years, most of our bases will be found… and that'll be it."

"So we retire?"

"No son, we adapt." His father slid another piece of paper over at him.

"Articles of Incorporation for Advanced Space Concepts…the hell?"

"It's your birthday son, or Mr. President of ASC. Congratulations."

"Thank you. Thank you so much. Would you mind explaining?"

"The longer we go, the harder it is to launder our money, and the harder it is to find homes for our ships. We do both. APC cost me a hell of a lot of money, but it was clean money— well more or less, and it's a licensed ship services and production firm. It's a legitimate way to get ships and support for them."

"Okay, and the first time we use one of those ships for a raid, they close us down. The Colonial Investigative Bureau isn't dumb."

"Your old man isn't senile yet son. You're right. So we're not. We're going to be completely above board. We're going to staff it with the family, but not use it."

"Going legitimate?"

"For now," Thomas said. "James what is going to happen to the Line."

"I dunno."

"I'll bet that within your lifetime, it'll go down, and then there is going to be the rush for land, and we're going to be ready to exploit it. We already have to some degree." James nodded. Hiding loot beyond the Line was an old, if dangerous trick. The fleet wouldn't even think of patrolling beyond the Line.

"But The fleet won't control all that turf. They can't. Hell, things will probably be as bad as they were after the first war or even before the Articles of Confederation. Companies and colonists alike are going to want security. They'll want gambling, whore houses, fine goods for them to trade their riches for…and we'll be there to provide it." Thomas smirked. "In fact, who knows— maybe one day we'll be a new colony— we wouldn't be the first pirates who made good, after all."

James laughed at that, then got more serious. "If we do this, the other groups are going to move in."

"Let them. It's a dying field out there— in fact, the more they run around, the less likely anyone will come after us. We're going to keep our equipment ready and close at hand."

"Big gamble."

"Biggest. You in?"

"Insurance fraud was palling. I'm in."

* * *

_One Year Later_

_Iris Reserve Depot._

James tugged at his collar.

"Don't worry sir," the civilian administrator said. "We regularly check the life system."

_Do you check to see if wanted felons are in it?_ James thought. Granted he was still the 'John Doe Captain of numerous pirate vessels' but that didn't mean he wasn't nervous standing in the middle of a Colonial Base.

"I'm fine. My company has been dealing with gearing up for our subsidiary shipping firm, which is why I'm here." He gestured out the window. "Those are Lybock Bay heavy transports, correct?"

"Yes sir. The largest transports built after the cylon conflict. As you know they utilize a stripped down version of the Jupiter's sublight and fTL drives— they were intended to keep up with battlestar groups. As you can note, they have the mounting points for an impressive anti-fighter and light anti-ship battery."

"Well, we won't be using those," James said. At least not until they're well beyond your eyes. "You see that we have authorization to remove ten." He shrugged, "We would have purchased more, but these seem to be the only ones in decent condition."

"Well, they're obsolete in a way— after all, the fleet hasn't launched any deep penetration raids since the War."

"True," James consulted his paperwork. "Next on the list are the Reprieve class repair and refit ships." He could see one out side of armor glass. James let the yammering of the functionary wash over him as he looked at the three ships that were his true goal. The Reprieves weren't just repair ships— they were floating factories. Granted, all the classified equipment was long gone, but the fact was that they'd been in mothballs for 20 years. Most of the removed equipment could be replaced with civilian equipment that was better…except for the single systems that were on board.

The armor fabrication units. Even today, warship armor was hard to build and very difficult to come by— the Colonial military tended to ask questions when people tried to buy something designed to laugh off nukes, after all, especially since it had few uses for conventional ships. That's why he'd spent a tremendous amount of money getting a supply license for that self-same fleet. The fact that he wasn't going to use it wouldn't surprise anyone. Everyone would just assume that the equipment was there in case the navy broke one of their shiny new battlestars and needed repairs. The bonuses and payment from such a windfall would pay for the units ten times over.

And now for the hard part.

"Well, it all seems to be in order, so I'll have my people go over it, but I'm afraid we have rather a lot of paperwork to fill out," James said with false amusement. 'Lot' after all, was something of an understatement. He'd be lucky to get out before tomorrow.

* * *

"Thomas…I have to wonder about you. You had such a good thing going… and now you're going to give it up?" The head of the Ha'la'tha syndicate for the Ouranos asteroid belt, frowned as he looked at his sometime rival. "Why?"

"Piracy is getting harder— maybe I want to give something to my son?"

"A shipping company?" Varak asked. "A shipping company currently involved in buying up uneconomical transports? Thomas, I may be many things, but I hope you don't think that one of them is stupid, old friend."

"Not stupid. But better set up to take advantage of this opportunity," Thomas replied. "You know I'm not going to come flying in with warships— I'm not suicidal."

"No, you're not. Your word. You won't try and move in on the belt?"

"My Word."

"The amount of money you're asking for to be bought out… is great, you realize that."

"Too much?"

"No, but we'll need to be careful in how its transferred."

"That's fine— I have a number of accounts, and we can gradually transfer it into the company."

"Or use it for other things, hmm? Things you don't wish to be connected?" Varak smiled. "Keep your secrets. I'll have the transfers ready to go."

* * *

Carla Sims was not prone to asking questions of the Boss. That included why she was beyond the Line, risking life imprisonment in a Colonial prison in order to scout out the old battlefields of the Cylon war. She knew a few other ships were also making the risky transits, and they were supposedly looking for planetary bases. There was also the traditional order: watch out for toasters.

Not that she could do anything about them. The Rattletrap was an old freighter without a single gun, mainly to make the best of the (poor) chance of convincing a Colonial Officer that the jump had been an accident.

"Okay…" she muttered to her copilot. "This is the site of the Battle of Tarim… sensors picking anything up?"

"No. Probably deorbited a while ago." Her second said in a bored voice. "And look, yet another moon. Wow, so many sites outside of the Colonies." Carla didn't say anything. Mike was right— the reason that the Colonies hadn't been upset at the Armistice was that it seemed like other than the 12 main worlds, Kobol (wherever that was) and Earth (if it even existed), the universe had very little in the way of habitable planets. Still, the boss was the boss.

* * *

"So I hope you understand," The portly functionary continued on in a somewhat bored voice. "After all, while it is true that they are slated for disposal as hulks, the Defenders are still technically Colonial property and cannot be sold to private individuals… especially in such numbers. As for the Port Caprica troop carriers, those are still technically on the fleet rolls!"

James leaned back and let the words wash over him before replying.

"Which we all know is a polite way of saying that they will never be used again. Not with the more heavily automated ships replacing them. It takes what, twice the crew to man one of those old ships?" James smiled. "My company can tear down the ships, remove the weapons, and get them ready for recycling, and it would benefit our position in this market."

"I'm afraid that you do not have, the ah, backing or reputation of an older company. Now if you'll excuse me-"

"I'm afraid you should probably read this document." James said and handed it to the man.

Boredom turned to fear, as his face paled, sweat starting the bead on his forehead.

James leaned back and made certain his portable jammer was working. "We're quite private here, but accepting money from the Ha'la'tha?" He tched.

"How did you…"

"Civic minded individuals." _Or rather part of the price Dad got out of the Ha'la'tha for the asteroid belt interests._

"Now, I'm not interested in extorting money out of you. The price we would pay for those ships remains the same…although I might mention that since the weapons systems are still worth something perhaps they should be left on so we could sell them as well." He smiled brightly, "It's not as if they have any ammunition, and by law we could only sell them to authorized fleet disposal services."

"But I-"

"I'm told that the Ha'la'tha have a rather… draconian policy about people who might reveal their secrets…say during a court trial? They've even been known to take preemptive action against those who are facing such a trial, in case they should attempt to bargain with secrets that are not theirs to tell."

James leaned back and had the grace to not laugh as the thoroughly deflated functionary started the paperwork to ease his way.

* * *

_Tauron Historical Society_

The main lecture hall of the Society was crowded. Likely because the speaker had promised something that would put Taurus on the map and more importantly, finally put Caprica's insufferable historical society in its place once and for all.

"Ladies and Gentlemen!" Timothy Stearns said to the audience. "As you know, our brave soldiers and sailors gave their blood to protect us from the Cylon menace, and without their sacrifice, Tauron may have been lost." A few older members in the audience nodded. "But we do not have any monument worthy of their sacrifice. Not yet." He looked over at them, "Sadly, the, unlike the Caprican's, our Battlestar Archeron did not survive survive the war."

The audience was bored, he could see, but it was time to wake them up.

"But there is another Archeron. AS you know, it was part of the first group of battlestars to be completed after the Armistice. Behind him the screen lit up. "And it was one of a series of ships that broke many design boundaries. The first warship to incorporate dual landing bays, demonstrating our improved control over gravitic systems. One of the most heavily armed ships of any era. A triumph of Colonial engineering. But sadly, one that missed the war it had been designed for, and in this era of rising crew costs, its lack of automated and centrally controlled computer systems doomed it to the decom yards. In fact, I have learned that in the next year it is expected to be stripped and used for live fire exercises! It is a terrible way to reward this ship for it's long years of service!"

Some rising interest. It was always easy, especially on Tauron, to get people annoyed when you talked about ships being destroyed, especially if you made it sound unpatriotic.

"But I don't understand what we can do for it." One lady said.

"I have…several extremely wealthy backers, who feel that this state of affairs cannot stand." Timothy looked at the crowd. "That this ship should not be turned into a hulk, or an amusement park, but should be preserved, as it was at it's height." He gestured at the screen, showing the ship during it's trials. "They propose to refit the ship, to bring it back to its original condition, not simply as a static exhibit, but as a mobile monument, that can travel the Colonies!" Now he had everyone's attention.

"How can we…how could we afford that?"

"Cost is not an issue— the ship is still in excellent condition."

"But approval…" An older man gestured at the ship's image. "I was on that ship, young man, and it is still part of the Colonial Military."

"Yes, which is why the assistance of your organizations is so important," Timothy said. "Not simply to get permission for the use of the ship, but to help in its restoration. When the Archeron is completed, visitors will be able to feel the thrill and connection that comes from standing on a ship that lacks only ammunition to once again defend the colonies!" He laughed. "Of course, I'm certain there will be lockouts on the various items so that even if our visitors bring their own ammunition, they'll be disappointed in the results."

The room filled with laughter and as the people crowded around him, Timothy, for the hundredth time wondered why the Boss wanted to waste his money on this. Kinkaid had never been a military history fan after all…

* * *

"An excellent year," Kinkaid said as he looked at the flowing traffic of Caprica City, far below the hotel room.

"An expensive year." James muttered. "WE're making some money from the cargo runs, but it's not enough."

"We've got savings."

"Yes, but companies don't usually lose money. Not unless they can't help it. Dad, what if someone looks at what we're doing?"

"We have ship hulks waiting for disposal," his father said. "And hulks will be disposed of. The fleet isn't looking at them, because big ships aren't a problem any more— they're worried about pirates with dinky little ships that are hard to squash. We're actually more at risk from the smaller stuff."

James nodded at that. The idea of a defender challenging the Caprica defense grid was laughable. But a ton of hand held rocket launchers was a different matter since it could fit in a small cargo bay and even today, Caprica still remembered the religious terrorism that had cost so much before the Cylon war.

"We're staring to get the FTL's ready and we have most of the weapons— and since some of the parts are being manufactured…"

In the repair ships, not to mention the other ships we have. After all, there were so many FTL transports in the colonies that being able to fabricate ship parts and FTL units on site wasn't even an eyebrow raising issue any more. It was cheaper to wait for a ship to jump in, pull the unit, replace or refit it and then jump to your destination than it was to simply try the same at sublight speeds.

"And once we jump the ships out, we have a fleet and a mobile shipyard." James said.

"Which we can keep one jump ahead of the competition and the fleet, if they decide to move out after us." Thomas shrugged. "I doubt they will. Hell, I bet some of the admirals would cheer us on."

"Which reminds me," James commented. "We finally got approval for some test of concept production runs. The fleet was very happy at our low cost."

"You mean desperate."

"I mean desperate. Thank you President Adar." James gestured at the display on the table. "It's a good design if I say so myself. Next generation armor, good weapons, and of course our modular bays…" He gestured at the lower and upper sections of the ship, "Can be changed out." Several images appeared, with ships mounting different styles of superstructure. "Light troop carrier, cruiser, and of course carrier model." He smiled. "Jackson Industries was very happy to partner with us. It's a great team up— they use the upstarts for some capital, and we get the experience we need in ship building. As well as the ability to lose some ships in the construction."

"How many?"

"Ask me later when we know how much we're being observed. These aren't hulks dad, they'll be frontline ships. In fact, the fleet has already informed our representatives that nobody's putting any combat programs in those computers until the ship is officially accepted for trials." He shrugged, "We'll have some, especially if we just build the logistics version. We can always swap out later."

"So." Thomas said finally. "Confident?"

"It could all come tumbling down, the organization busted, you and I making little rocks out of big ones…but I feel good about this. I'm thinking of "King" James."

"Stick with Governor," his father said. "After all, if this works, we'll have to present ourselves as loyal members of the Colonial government who are simply trying to keep order in the wilds beyond the Line…"

The two men chuckled as the lights of the city continued to play over the room.

TBC


	2. Gathering Clouds

Fall-1 year.

* * *

"Mr. Kinkaid," The host said, "What do you think about your winning of the preliminary contract for the Legion Class multirole cruiser, especially given that you've managed to undercut and block out several larger aerospace concerns."

"Well Tom," James said, "I haven't actually done that. We're a small firm and while the design was accepted for preliminary usage, we've sold production rights to Consolidated Virgon."

"And yet you have some ships being built in your own shipyards."

"Being _assembled_ in our own shipyards." Looking over at the camera, James smiled, "People must understand that as a multi-role ship, we're very involved with later lifecycle designs. While it's true that we could build them ourselves, our facilities are set up to produce short production runs, rather than mass produce ships or equipment. As part of that, we're keeping a number of hulls for experimental use. We have the basic module set up, of course, fleet transport, cruiser, carrier and assault ship, but there are other ideas out there, and of course we need hulls for them."

"Well I bet you're happy about the profit."

"I always am, Tom!"

"Haha, now for our next guest, It's Maran Page who just finished her newest book, "Channeling your Inner God, Mass Consciousness and the Lords of Kobol."

"Lords, if I have to go through that again…" James said as he got into the limousine.

"Still worried you're going to be arrested, boss?"

"Not so much," James answered his bodyguard.

_And it's odd, but I really _aren't_ worried. _The world of major business had more criminals in it than James had ever encountered as a pirate and the truth was, so long as the Colonial Military didn't think you were too far off the reservation, they weren't about to damage a profitable business relationship. _Heh, maybe we should abandon the whole plan and just stick here._ On the other hand, _here_ James would never be more than a very small fish in a vast pond. And there was the thrill of seeing how long he could keep everyone in the dark. He'd half believed that the whole thing would come down the first time they tried to convince the inspectors that the salvage they were selling came from the _Defenders_ instead of older ships that had replaced the now rearmed warships, all stashed safely in the far belt halo of ice wordlets that orbited the system. Nobody went there, which is why Dad had chosen the region for his main base, and why James had made certain that their production gear was mobile.

"And Dad was right…" Every year pressure was rising. The cylons had never been seen, why not start exploring some of the old worlds that had been abandoned after the war? Any given day, he could read another editorial to that effect, and sooner or later the dam was going to break.

* * *

Carla gestured at her crew. "Let's finish this and go home."

The _Rattletrap_ had been over the Line so much that Carla had almost blown the secret a few times simply because it was getting hard to remember that you weren't supposed to _go_ over the Line. This would be her 30th trip.

"Got the list on this one?"

"One of the last fights— about a week before the Armistice," her copilot said. "Losses, but no real information about condition."

"Its a fraking waste of time," She muttered. 30 trips and all they had found had been some old shuttles, MKII vipers, and a cruiser with a gigantic hole in it. Space was big and in most cases, even if there had been something, it must have drifted away long ago.

"Jumping…now!"

A flash and they were elsewhere.

"I'm not-frak me sideways!" the copilot shouted. "BIG DRADIS return!"

Carla looked up at where the copilot indicated the return came from. "Anything active?"

"Negative. Metal, but it's cold."

"Okay, let's see…" There was a large ice asteroid, but Carla couldn't see…

_Wait a minute. That thing half buried in the ice…no not buried, the ice formed _around _it. _

_It can't be…_

"It's a battlestar." The copilot's voice was reverent. "It's a battlestar…and it looks _intact."_

"Mike, Jane, get suited up," Carla called back. "Don't get over excited. It may just be half of a battlestar."

"No, the ice formed around it."

Later, Carla waited, tapping her fingers on the console as they watched the worklights of Mike and Jane's suits move towards the dark mass. A wire controlled remote was with them— using radio control around a ship that might have boobytraps or live ordinance was a very bad idea.

Thirty minutes later, Mike was on the line.

"You're not going to believe this, but it looks intact."

"How intact?"

"REALLY intact. Theres' a lot of dead centurions and crew, but it looks like they came out of jump and got boarded before they could open up the flight bays."

"Wait-you mean?"

"I've only seen one sub hanger, but yeah, it looks like a pretty big chunk of the flight group is here. Boss, there's dead bodies— lots of 'em. Looks like the ship was depressurized and then the centurions hunted down anyone in a suit. Most of the air tight doors have been opened."

"Why didn't they take it?" Carla wondered.

"My dad was in the war," her copilot commented. "He said that when the Armistice was agreed to, the cylons just up and left. Didn't matter what they were doing. Maybe they did the same here."

"And the government didn't want to risk it by moving beyond the line. Lords have mercy." Carla breathed out. "And it's in a stable orbit. We're going home. Now. The Boss needs to hear about this."

* * *

"A b_attlestar?" _James asked in disbelief.

"Yap," Thomas said. "Carla's people didn't go into it beyond the first few chambers, but it looks intact. Lots of boarding action. I've sent Doeg and his crew out to see if we can get it running."

"Damn." James paused and thought. "You used one of the civvie repair ships?"

"Damned right I did. People watch the others a might too closely."

James nodded. The Colonial Fleet didn't know what they were doing, or they'd all be in prison, but they did keep a fairly close track on the big refit ships and mobile dockyards, ironically to protect _them_ from pirates. It was a pain.

"They know enough to be careful, right?"

"They've been doing it long enough son."

"Still, a full…that gives us two." James smiled. "If we can get it working, we won't have a problem with anyone else muscling in on our territory." Slowly James' smile turned to a frown.

"Son?"

"We're running short of crew, dad. Really short."

"Well, that's a problem, but we're not going to just suddenly need to go to war, now are we? We can't crew all those ships— there aren't that many people who'd tolerate being cut off from home, and someone would talk."

_True, but it's still worrisome._ There was no way they could get their hands on cutting edge military automation, which meant that most of the ships were crewed in the old way, lots of on-mount weapons stations and ten guys doing the job of one modern work station. They could operate the ship with fewer…but not well. _And once we need to crew them, we can't exactly call up the local military academy…_

* * *

Doeg Maska had been working in salvage for the last twenty years, much of it working for Thomas. After all, it was doing exactly what the big boys did, only when they wanted to steel something they passed a law and made it nice and legal. The grizzled engineer frowned as he looked in the shrouded depths of the Battlestar _Athena. _The main engine roomed looked largely intact. Oh there were bullet holes all over the place, and dead crew members, some of them dead from explosive decompression and others shot down in their vacuum suits. They'd found the damage control and life support centers, both of which had been taken by the cylons, the doors blown open and not so much full of mummified guards as they were the parts of mummified guards.

"Doeg, we've finished going through the ship and none of our sensors are coming up positive. If there's a boobytrap here it isn't using power and it isn't nuclear."

"Good," he replied. "Magazines?"

"Topped up. They hit the ship before it had a chance to do anything at all."

_All your medals and honor, and where did it get you? Dying alone out here with a government that didn't even try and find out what killed you._ Doeg shook his head. He was a practical sort, but the sooner they got the bodies out and the lights and lifesupport back on, the better he'd be. The shadows seemed oddly attentive to him, almost like ghosts watching to see who had taken their home.

"Okay everyone," he called out. "First thing we need to do is get the auxiliary power units up, then I want to pressurize the engine room. Forget everything else, because we need to get this bad girl into a cradle before we can even think about a full scale refit. Tonya, your people are on grave's duty. Make certain you get their medallions."

"Why?"

"Because the Boss would like it that way and if we ever get caught, 'recovering a ship to send the medallions to the loved ones of the deceased' sounds a lot better than 'chucking the bodies overboard in our haste to loot their home'."

* * *

"The Archeron is ready for FTL testing, sir."

James nodded. That had been a long-shot but the big battlestar was now back to its original glory, with the exception of the cannon barrels and missile silos that had been filled with concrete and the empty magazines and flight bays. Nothing that couldn't be fixed. Nothing short of incredible, actually that they'd been able to get so much done in a few years.

"Let it stay at our shipyard for now Timothy." _Since we've so generously offered to go over it one more time. Of course, nobody knows that we're making certain that the FTL drive will 'malfunction' when we want it to, sending the poor ship and its skeleton museum crew to an untimely demise. _

But not now. Having that happen ow would stink. So it would wait for at least a year. The _Athena _had been coming along well, as had their other ships. They now had a nice core of honest to god warships…and in a year or so they'd be positioned to become THE power in the new territories. Just a year since they'd found the derelict battlestar and it was already flight capable, if undermanned. The vipers had proven useful, since getting vipers and other fighters was always a bit dicey, given that there really weren't many legitimate roles for a fighter craft. But now they had their own supply and could focus on building up parts. They even had enough people to crew his personal _Defender, _running its 24 viper pilots through drills and preparing for action, or more likely to train other crew members when they finally made their move.

"Very good sir…ah, since we're a new company, I've got another request. You know the _Galactica_ museum is opening this week and they were wondering if you could be a guest…"

"No, I'm just too damned snowed under with work right now," James frowned for a moment, then shook his head again. "They'll have to get along without me."

Next: The Storm Breaks.


	3. The Breaking of the Storm

"Boss, we got a problem."

James frowned, looking for the com on a desk that seemed to have become the favored nesting site for paper making insects. He brushed a pile of Admiralty status requests off the side of the desk and found the comlink.

"What is it?"

"We've been listening in on the general FLTCOM channels and they're having issues with the forward deployed ships."

"What sort of issues?" James replied, in no mood for small talk.

"That's just it— ships are just dropping off the air. They're reporting running into bogies and going dark."

"A fleet exercise?"

"None listed, and our own watchers just jumped out."

James paused at that. The Fleet had normally kept at least a few ships near the port for security's sake. It had forced more discretion than he'd thought they'd need. But the problem was that the line was light hours away, on the border of the system. Any light speed transmission would take that long to get in, and nobody had FTL radio, though not for lack of trying. That meant the…

"What about raptors or automated pods?"

"No. That's what half the chatter is about. No pods, no nothing."

_Okay, that is a bit weird. _

_"_Bring everything to Condition One."

"Boss?"

"Call it an unannounced emergency drill and tell the department heads that they should consider this an opportunity to practice BugOut."

The other fell silent. Normally James wouldn't even hint at the contingency plan for if they were found out by the government.

" You sure?"

"Fleet ships don't go off the radar for no reason."

"Okay boss."

James frowned and wondered if he should finish his paperwork, or go to the com center. He decided on the latter.

By the time he arrived there, the first FTL drones had appeared in Leonis orbit, screaming the news of the bombing of Caprica and Picon station.

* * *

"I don't…I don't understand!" one of the techs was babbling, his hands trembling. "The reports, the vipers and battlestars, they're just _falling_ out of the sky, how can this be happening, _how?"_

_It's weird. We're pirates and like to mock the navy, but now… now we realize just how utterly we trusted their ability to protect us, _James thought to himself with grim amusement. He gestured and the security detachment took the hysterical operator outside the command center.

"FLTCOM is down," the other operator reported quietly. "Last orders were to dump all CNP enabled programs and rendezvous with Admiral Nagala at Virgon.

"And mostly fighter activity over Leonis, right?"

"Yeah, but the defense grid appears to be down, so that's not certain. They lost their capital city and before they went off the air, I was getting other reports of bombs."

_Normally a thousand fighters couldn't break in. But now…_ Whatever the cylons did, it didn't have to last very long. Just long enough to lob a nuke into a ship or a base that couldn't protect itself. Even if other forces were left, the loss of so many ships...

Checkmate.

"How is BugOut going?"

"Most of the big stuff jumped." The repair ships, the big transports and their cruisers, along with the bulk haulers and lighters. The rest of the station was a swirling mass of the lighter jump capable transports.

_"Archeron?"_

"About ready to jump. Are you sure, boss? It's got a lot of armor."

"And no functional _guns. _It's a great big target right now. But if the cylons see it you can bet they won't be ignoring us for very much longer. Have it jump. Now."

"Yeah boss."

"I-" the radio operator had his hand up to the headset and suddenly turned very pale.

"What is it?"

"Transmission from Caprica via drone. President Adar offered to surrender. No response."

_And that's a response in and of itself. You don't accept a surrender from someone you expect to kill. Everyone we leave, unless the Fleet can win, and I don't think so, is dead now. So what do you want to be, James? Pirate, or governor?_

_"_Get Big Stick back here, now." James said, mentioning his personal _Defender. _In addition, it was the only one that was fully armed. "I also want every atmocapable freighter, jump capable shuttle and raptor that can be here in an hour or less."

"What?"

"This isn't an invasion boys, its a genocide. As soon as they finish with the Fleet, the cylons are going to start nuking our worlds like they have Caprica— perhaps worse. We can't do anything about the rest, but Leonis? There's 2.6 billion people down there, less any who have already died, and I don't feel like letting the cylons have any more than they can get." He paused, "We're pirates." Some of the people, those who didn't know the whole story, blinked at that, but the inner circle nodded. "And we're not heroes like the fleet. Let them fight to the glorious death, I want to live to see tomorrow and I bet everyone else down there also wants to see tomorrow."

"But Boss, how can we do that?" Carla said. At some point she and several other captains had come into the room. "It's not like landing at a port— the cylons will hit those ports, and nobody knows we're coming. I'm game, but we can't just land in the middle of a field and scream "c'mon over!"" She brushed her brown hair back in a distracted gesture. "We'd either get swarmed by mobs or get nobody and we're not going to have much time to do this."

_Frak. She's right. _There were civil defense plans, but they'd likely died with the department heads in the burning cities— and in any case, they assumed a leisurely run up, hours,days or even weeks while the fleet and planetary defense forces held off the cylons. _Think…_ James nodded. "Okay, the local planetary guards should be arming, we land by their armories."

"Boss?" Carla said in shock. Generally getting close to armed military formations was last on her list of ideas. "Even if we get 'em…"

"_Genocide, Carla."_ James' voice dropped a half octave. "They're not here to conquer us, they're here to _kill us._ Everything we were planning? Out the window. Everything the justice system might have done? Out the window, because I bet the courts are so much radioactive plasma now. They shoot at you, you leave. But that's not going to get everyone-"

"Schools!" Carla's copilot shouted out. Carla looked at him and James wondered why she looked so annoyed, but he gestured for the man to go on. "Schools sir— the kids will be there. Especially boarding schools!"

"Colleges?"

"Maybe, but most of those students are probably trying to get home— but a school, the teachers will keep the students in— especially boarding schools. Leonis has a lot of them, and they _can't_ get back home and their parents can't get to them— and they're all concentrated."

"Can we get the addresses?"

"They're in the directories…and most boarding schools are…"

"Away from big cities, right." James said. That was a big point for many parents, the idea that the school was away from the dangers (overstated as they were) and temptations of the cities. They probably hadn't expected cylon nukes to be one of the dangers, but…

"Good plan. We'll go with it…Terrence, is it?"

"Yeah Boss."

"Get to it— you've got 20 minutes before the first ships hit atmo, I want primary and secondary landing targets for them all."

"But what about food and water?" someone asked.

James turned, his face a death's head smile. "That is, as some say, next quarter's problem. This quarter, we have to keep from being vaporized." He turned around and looked at the monitors. "Next thing. All of our raptors are to go out and look for ships. The spacelanes are closed, and nobody is landing right now. We know there are cylon fighters around, so any raptor that finds an FTL ship match airlocks and _verbally_ give them the FTL coords for one of our smuggling points." He made an absent gesture, "we'll give each one its own point, but I don't want to risk losing everyone if the cylons happen to stumble over one of 'em."

"What about non-FTL ships."

"Leave them," James said brutally. "We can't save them."

"Sir, Big Stick just jumped in."

"Fine, that's it. This base can't move. You've got your orders, everyone get to a ship and get to where you need to be. I'm nuking the complex." That stopped everyone. James grinned. "No time to sanitize it, and I really don't want to take the risk that someone wrote jump coords in their secret journal."

* * *

As they got _Rattletrap_ ready, Carla continued to glare at Terrence. Finally he could take no more.

"What, it's a good idea!"

"We're taking the planetary guards list," she said shortly.

"_WHAT?_"

Finally, she turned to look at him and poked him in the chest. "Here's the deal, Terrence. If you are very nice to me, and don't say anything else, I won't explain, ever, to the boss why you had that idea so easily…and why you were so fast to select boarding schools."

"Um…"

"I've _seen_ your pinup collection. I dunno what it is about ladies wearing school uniforms and I don't want to know, but unless you want me to explain that we just made this entire frakked up plan based on a fetish, you are going to be quiet and not make my life any worse."

"Okay, Carla." There was a pause, then Terrance quietly said, "Carla?"

"Yeah?"

"I knew about it because yeah, I like the look, but… that's not the reason I suggested it. I mean, if I was a parent…"

"Yeah. Buckle in. This is going to be ugly."

* * *

The shuttles and freighters screamed down through the atmosphere of Leonis, their detectors already reading enhanced radiation levels. The cylons largely ignored them, dueling with the few fighters and ships that were still functional, while the mass of the fleet had already jumped out, likely for a major fleet action. Pilots held on to their controls with white knuckled hands, hoping that the strident frame fatigue warnings wouldn't get any worse.

_RattleTrap:_

"Connor's Crossing local defense base, this is freighter Rattletrap, I am inbound to your position, do you read?" Carla waited a moment, and then an angry voice came on the line.

"All flightlanes are closed, why are you disobeying orders?"

"I've been ordered to pick you up for evacuation. The cylons have temporarily withdrawn the bulk of their forces from Leonis. We have a very brief window-"

"Who is this? Are you part of the fleet?"

"The Colonial Fleet is mostly gone," Carla said. "Look, I have other pick ups, so you can load, or you can die. But sooner or later those ships will be back and I'm not waiting."

"Wait one."

"We're getting a signal from Big Stick." Terrence said quietly. "Oh. Shit."

"What?"

"Admiral Nagala dead, Atlantia destroyed. No communication with any remaining fleet units, presume that the Colonial Fleet has been effectively destroyed. Hurry it up, boys and girls."

"Connor's Crossing, this is inbound flight. Admiral Nagala is dead, repeat, Admiral Nagala is dead. The cylons ain't here for a party, they're here to kill us. I need an answer now."

"We're mustering at the municipal airfield. We have dependents and civilian evacuees."

"I'll take all I can. Leave your tanks, but if you have any ration packs, we could use them."

"Understood."

"There it is…holy Gods above," Terrence gasped. "That must be half the town— we can't carry that many people!"

The ship grounded, and Carla had Terrence keep the engine running. She hit the main access doors, and stepped out into utter chaos. People were screaming yelling and she could see the defense troops holding back a mob. In front of her a major, wearing Leonis Home Guard tags ran up.

"I can't take all these people!" she shouted.

"We have volunteers holding them back— the ones over there are all you're going to take."

"Then get your men on, Major!" Carla shouted.

"Not I," he replied. "We'll send enough for security, but it doesn't sit right to leave when our neighbors are staying behind, you know?"

"You'll die."

"We all go to the Lords eventually."

"Gods speed you, than." Carla said back, as the tide of humanity flowed into the Rattletrap.

"You as well. Keep 'em safe."

Carla didn't have anything to say about that. Once back into the cockpit, she looked over at Terrence. "Get us to minimum jump altitude and we're out of here."

"That's gonna be hard on the civvies."

"Dying's harder."

"Okay, I'm-oh Gods…" Terrence moaned. "Bogie— cylon raider coming in hot."

"Boost, full up, redline it. Hold on!" She shouted over the intercom. The Rattletrap wasn't a Colonial raptor, it had to get to a certain altitude, far enough away from the nearest large mass so that the FTL wouldn't tear the ship apart. Far below, the raider launching a single missile. Light flared ino the cockpit.

"Oh Gods damn them…" Terrence breathed in horror. "They nuked it. It was just a little town, why would they nuke it!"

"Because there were humans in it," Carla said. "We're at the minimum safe distance. Let's get the hell out of here.

* * *

_Big Stick:_

"Remind me to give Terrence a raise," James muttered to nobody in particular. The landings across Leonis were going fast because he had been right. The schools still had their student bodies (save for some who had fled home, likely to die) and the big boarding schools had instructors and administrators who had managed to get things organized. One picture showed a heavy freighter, its loading doors open and its landing pads sunk deeply into the loam of a playing field, being boarded by neat lines of students from the school.

"They're not going to be very useful," an officer muttered. "We should be going after colleges."

"Terrence was right— colleges are either in cities that are nuked or about to be nuked, and most of their students are long gone," James replied. "We're playing a numbers game."

_Of course half those numbers are kids who have never been off world, much less know what to do with a spacesuit…_

_But they can learn. They'll have to. We're going to all have to learn. _

"Boss, confirming, no further coms from Virgon. The last transmissions stated that massive bombardment of all urban areas had commenced."

"They'll be spreading out next," James muttered. _Big Stick _was the most powerful ship he'd ever commanded, but it wouldn't last long against a single basestar, to say nothing of a fleet. "Tell everyone they'd better move it. Status on raptors?"

"Lots of interference, but they seem to be picking up people."

_I wonder if anyone else is doing this?i _James thought. Surely someone else had had the same thought, or had gone to some fall back position…

_But if they can turn off the fleet, whose to say they weren't just reading all those fallbacks?_

"Okay, gentlemen and ladies, I think it's time to get back-" The com board interrupted his comments.

"Boss, we're getting a distress signal. It's the… _Spirit of Caprica_ and a military escort. They're engaged and need help. It's an all call for any Colonial warships."

"Well, they'll just have to be satisfied with us," James said. "We're running, but I'll be damned if I don't take the opportunity to bloody some toaster noses. Did they give us coordinates?"

"Yeah boss."

"Set the clock. Load the nukes into the missile launchers." That stopped everyone for a moment. James laughed. "You know, I really think being executed for using a nuke is the least of my worries today. I want to make an impression."

* * *

_Colonial Marine Transport Turjan. _

_We're going to die. _Colonel Mara Tasmin thought. The thought alone didn't frighten her; Marines understood the nature of their profession, after all. What frightened her was just how badly they had _failed_ their civilians. The Fleet was gone, the Turjan's escorts slaughtered while they drifted powerless. The Marine Transport had been able to get away, but modern transports were not like the old fleet transports, which had to expect direct combat. They were more transport than warship, with light armor and defenses designed to stop the few fighters that might get through the screen, or take the nearly suicidal step of trying to jump in close for a missile run.

_Well that was on tactical doctrine that wasn't worth the paper it was written on, _she thought as another rumble ran through the ship. The captain and XO had bought it, putting her in charge of both marine and naval operations. The marine airgroup was engaging the raiders, but the Turjan wasn't designed for fast turnaround like a true battlestar and the numbers were looking increasingly grim as more and more marine fighters had to break off to reload, and ever more cylons jumped in.

"If anyone survives this clusterfrack, that raider jump drive is going to be a problem."

"Ma'am?"

"Nothing. Probably not important. Has _Spirit of Caprica_ gotten their FTL working yet?" She looked at the icon representing the huge ship. _Cylons must have thought it was really important to detail so many fighters away from murdering the fleet. _

"The cylons are gathering for another run at the _Caprica. _Captain Wilson doesn't think he can protect them this time."

"All fighters to protect the civilians. We'll handle our own problems."

Nobody bothered to mention what "handling" likely meant.

"They're coming-FTL Emergence!"

_Oh Gods, a basestar_

"Reading ID—_Big Stick?_" He paused, "It's a defender, but it's not Colonial Fleet…did we even have any of those ships left?"

The cylons were surprised, their formation breaking up as the defender started to spray flak rounds from its heavy guns as streams of malignant fire from its lighter batteries sought out individual raiders. Vipers were launching from its single under slung pod.

"Get them on the horn, warn them about the computer exploit!" Tasmin shouted.

"I-they're MK IIs," The operator said. "This can't be a Colonial ship. Colonel, they're hailing us."

"This is Turjan Actual, who am I speaking to?" she asked.

"I'm James Kinkaid, your friendly neighborhood pirate. Before we go any further, are you planning to arrest me and bring me to the swift justice of the Admiralty?" There was a smirk in his tone.

"No sir, mainly because I think all the admirals are dead."

When the answer came back, it didn't have any of the smirk in it anymore. "So they are. Colonel, I can get you and your charge to safety, of a sort. We've been gathering other ships, but I want to know one thing."

"Yes?"

"These are my people. I don't demand you follow, but will you at least try to cooperate with us? I think our previous jobs have become…less relevant."

Mara paused. The wrong answer could see their savior leave. But she didn't know these people. She didn't know what they were doing and the owner of that voice had to know that as well. A blanket promise would be an obvious lie…

"I can promise we'll try. But I cannot ignore my oath to protect the people of the Colonies."

"I can respect that, and believe me, that's a goal I share. What's the status on the big ship."

"Their FTL drive wasn't spun up. We were trying to protect them long enough to get it up…"

"How long?"

"No more than five minutes."

"That's a long time."

"Don't I know it."

* * *

_Big Stick_

James frowned, watching the battle. His pilots were good— one of the reasons they didn't have many was the fact he refused to let just anyone into a viper cockpit, but the numbers were getting worse. Between them and the marines, however they had managed to put up a wall between the civilian ship and the cylons. The ship shuddered under the impact of conventional missiles, but the raiders had evidently expended their heavy and nuclear payloads.

"Two basestars!" The blood red icons were quickly swarmed over in a mass of detaching raiders.

_Why don't they just jump in? Maybe not all raiders have jump drives?_ Not that it mattered. That mass would swarm every fighter they had under without even noticing it.

"Boss—_Caprica's _got their FTL's ready!"

"Tell them to jump ASAP— both they and Turjan have the coords?"

"Yeah!"

"Prepare to fire the nukes— two waves. First one at the fighters, second one at the basestar, hopefully while they're dealing with that we can recall all the fighters. Get them back here now."

The remaining 12 fighters of the original 24, joined by the six closest marine fighters, swarmed into the underslung bay while the tidal wave of raiders crept closer. Then, from the hatches, the missiles launched, rapid fire. Of the first four, three were destroyed, before the last one detonated, the proximity warhead destorying nearly 20 raiders. AT that, the rest turned and as one swarmed at the remaining four missiles, protecting the base ships.

"Turjan's gone boss, all fighters on board!"

"Jump!"

James regretted one thing as the ship jumped. He never was going to see if any of the missiles managed to make it to the basestars.

TBC


	4. Making Plans

The anchorage was chaos when they appeared. Dozens of ships had arrived, including the big Caprican ship. His own ships were there, the transports and repair ships while the Archeron floated like an fortress in the middle of all of them.

The air waves were live with demands, questions, pleas.

"Message from the Turjan, boss."

"Route it here," James said, then taking the headset, "Big Stick Actual."

"We're going to be detected if that lot keep transmitting." The Colonel's voice was furious.

"No we won't. Why do you think the Fleet never found this place? There's a shell around it— microfragments of ice and metal. With their spin they generate a current big enough to screen out anything short of a nuke."

The other ships continued to straggle in over the course of the next 24 hours. Guard ships kept watch on the only clear place to jump in, while more heavily damaged ships and those that were stuffed beyond life support requirements sent their people over to less crowded ships or the asteroid base.

"How many did we get?" James asked.

"Lots." His father's reply was terse. "Son, you need to get down here, now. I've got a lynch mob forming."

"Mind the store," James told the rest of the crew and putting in a call to Mara, headed for the asteroid base.

It was a mad house. The ships that hadn't sent a captain were yelling on the wireless. When James came in with the Colonel and a marine guard, nobody noticed them.

"Where's the fleet! When can we go back!" The voices were raised in anger and fear.

_Not good._ James thought. He pitched his voice to carry over the tumult.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, if you'll…_SHUT UP_ I can answer your questions." He waited until the noise faded.

"First of all, understand this. No, you can't go back. Most of your homes are likely nuked. I'm sorry, it's cruel, but right now, there _are no colonies left._ The cylons killed them. The Colonel here may be the highest ranking officer left in the entire Colonial Military." That stopped everyone from talking, and James took the opportunity. "Now there are still people on the Colonies, lots of them. But we _can't get to them._ Not now. You're alive because the cylons were busy murdering the fleet. Go back now and they'll be waiting for you. Clear?"

"So…so what do we do?" a small woman asked.

"First of all, what's your name? I really hate 'hey you!' as a form of address."

"Nancy Clintock, of Clintock lines. One of your ships told me to follow them, and we ended up stuffing ourselves with refugees…but we're almost out of food and the life support won't hold-"

"We have food and enough life-support, and I bet they're transferring as we speak." James frowned. You generally didn't get idiots or cowards as ship masters, not even civilian ships— but she looked like she was about to go hysterical.

_Well, maybe it has something to do with the end of the world._

"Okay, here's the thing," James said. "I'm a pirate." There was a stir at that. "But we were planning on setting up our own little thing beyond the Line, so that when it finally came down, we'd be in position to take advantage. Good news. The Line's down. Bad News. Cylons aren't into gambling or prostitution. More Good news, we can adapt our plan and get the hell out of Caprica City."

"What…what do you mean?" At James' look the older man flushed slightly. "Dean Markson of the _Spirit of Caprica. _The captain felt he would be better occupied by assisting some of your other ships."

"Good man." James looked around at all of them. _Why the hells are they looking at me? I'm a pirate!_

_And you wanted to be a Boss. You joked about being a governor or even a king… and the Lords of Kobol have been known to have a nasty sense of humor. _James was an agnostic— oh _something _had brought humanity to the colonies, but he flew in a spaceship every day— it didn't make _him a _god. He made his own destiny, thank you very much. But on the other hand, he had to say something.

"We…" he paused. "We are going to have to be stubborn. We are going to have to be determined. And part of that is understanding that we can't stay here, or anywhere near here. The cylons destroyed our industry, our navy, our mines. Even if, by some miracle, we were to kill all of them here, they could just send for more ships…we don't have enough people or infrastructure to replace our losses. We could win every fight, but they've won the war."

"So that's it?" A voice came from the rear of the room.

"No. Not on your life. We've got ships, and we've got FTL. The Galaxy…it's bigger than most of you can imagine, even if we locked ourselves in the Colonies. We leave, and we go far…_very_ far. There are billions of stars out there, and if we go far enough, we'll lose the cylons forever. Then we can rebuild, and maybe, one day, our children can come back here and help those we had to leave behind." James looked around, "And I'm certain we're not the only ones. The Colonial Military isn't stupid— they know the war is lost and I bet we're not the only ones to do this. The cylons…" he gestured with a clenched fist, "Think they've destroyed us. They haven't. They've _scattered us_. That happened long before on Kobol and our one little ship of lights became the Twelve Colonies." The room was utterly silent.

"WELL THIS TIME WE WON'T STOP WITH TWELVE!" James bellowed out. "We'll leave, we'll make our fleet and we'll find a world and then we'll find other worlds. We will spread our people across the stars, so that one day when a cylon looks up into the skies of their "conquest" they'll understand that all across the galaxy, there are humans looking back down at them. Are you with me?"

There wasn't a cheer, but the rumble was approving. James didn't push it.

"Now," he continued, "some of you are having problems with order— if you can't handle it, talk to Colonel Tasmin. I'm _not_ her boss, but she's working with us for the greater good. In addition, I want you to start collecting a list of anyone with former military or police experience, especially anything involving shipboard operations. They'll be more, but right now we're still working things out."

"Thank you for warning me," Mara muttered to him.

"Blame the fact that I really hadn't considered my plan," James said back, equally quietly. "Marines have training and more importantly, people see you as the government. I send my people in, they're a lot more likely to have to break heads."

"Fine. But we need to talk about this."

"We will."

Later, after the marine units had been detached to the ships that needed it the most and the ships that were about to fall apart had their passengers transferred, James sat down with the closest he had to an inner circle. Colonel Tasmin was there, leader of her regiment, and the other colonial and local defense forces that had made it. When you factored in orphan units and the Marine Air Wing that had been traveling with her, she had nearly 12,000 soldiers under her command.

_And let's not forget that gives her a very big stick, _James reminded himself.

Next to Tasmin was his father, who seemed content to let his son lead, the Dean of the _Caprica_ and Doeg Maska, representing his engineering teasm. There were those with more education, James didn't doubt, but Doeg was allergic to bullshit of every type and that's what he needed.

"Okay," he started the meeting. "Cards on table. Despite what I told the people out there, plans are still very fluid, as in 'I'm trying not to drown.' But we cannot stay here— the cylons may eventually find this site, if for no other reason than some people who knew where it was haven't made it back in." He looked over at Tasmin. "But I want to know now— what role to you see yourself and your unit serving."

"Protecting the people." Tasmin said. "Which means that I Hope you don't intend to turn the fleet into a religious dictatorship where you drink from a golden goblet brought by your legion of love-slaves."

"I don't see that as me— besides," James smiled, "I'm rich and successful, to be honest I've had more problems beating people off…" His face lost its smile. "Which may be a problem here."

"You want a cattle prod?" Tasmin asked.

"No. So presuming I don't go mad with power…"

"I'll follow your orders. You at least had some idea of what to do and right now we need that, but sooner or later we're going to have to come up with some sort of civilian government. Trust me, military government, which is what we have right now, even if you're not calling yourself the military leader, doesn't work long-term."

"Okay, now I'm going to-" The door opened and a clerk entered.

"Here's the preliminary survey numbers boss."

"Okay,thanks. As I said, we're going to have to get a plan that lets us get-FRACK ME SIDEWAYS!"

"What? Cylons?" Tasmin asked.

"No," James replied feeling slightly faint. "Our survivor numbers. We're talking over 120,000, not including my people or your military forces."

"Thats…that's incredible!"

"I…"

"What is it."

"You know the school lift?"

"Yeah?"

"It worked a bit better than I thought. We have at least 80,000 kids, ages 'i want my nappie' to 17." He paused, looking at the papers in disbelief, "How the hell— we didn't even _have_ enough spacelift for that, not even redlining everything."

"Remember Clintock, James?" his father commented. "A lot of your people made the dive yelling out coordinates— lots of other ships joined in. Seems, 'save a bunch of kids' gets people involved."

"Yeah but…" James shook his head. "We're light on crew as it is now… I was expecting maybe 10,000, not…this."

" Mr. Kinkaid," Dean Markson said, "I think you should not be so worried. During the war many children served in the factories or on the front lines."

"And died…" Tasmin said.

"And died." The Dean agreed. "But the fact is, as you said, we're not fighting, we're running, and in any case, you might consider the benefits of such a young population."

"As in?"

"A teenager can learn to handle many duties, but they are also less likely to need medical support. They're healthier, more flexible to changing circumstances. Granted we will probably focus more on an apprenticeship system then normal schoo-" James waved his hand to stop what threatened to become a lecture.

"That's fine, but for now, we're talking a very small number of qualified crewmembers. I've got maybe a hundred trained pilots."

"About 500-800 on my end," Tasmin said. "Not all of them qualified on vipers."

"Yeah, and we have two battlestars, not to mention all the other ships…" James frowned. "The idea of course, was for a nice, leisurely gear up, but now we'll be lucky to provide enough trained crews to get them to jump."

"Dock the smaller ships," Doeg said. "Boss, the thing is a big ship, if you don't have to fight it, is a lot more efficient than a little ship. It'll also save on fuel and I'm a bit worried about that as well. We can dock most of the ships in the landing bays of the transports, and that'll free up crews."

"Mostly civilian."

"Yap, but it's not like we have a choice. It's going to take time to get this fixed."

"Well, we're also going to get some more ships."

"You want to make our problems worse?" Tasmin asked.

"No, but let's face it. If something breaks and we can't fix it, we'll have to leave the ship— awkward if we don't have any others to spare." Jacob tapped the table and continued. "Plus, we're going to need room. People can last a few weeks in a cabin, but trust me, without room to move around in…things get bad."

"Agreed," Markson said. "There's also the issue of population growth. In the long run, our population is certain to grow."

"So fine, what do we do?" Doeg asked.

"Long-duration decom storage depots," James commented. "I never tried to buy equipment from them, because they were old and people would have asked why a new company wanted to sink money like that. In fact, the ones I did buy raised a few too many eyebrows as it was. _Lybock Bays_ maybe a few others." He gestured outside. "After the war, there wasn't any need for big ass transports, especially when they ironed out the smaller FTL drives. But the fleet didn't want to just scrap 'em all, and with the exception of the ones at the ready reserve depots, they've been in long-term storage.. Granted, any ones that had warships are probably toast, since I can't imagine that the cylons left them alone, but there are others."

"That's one opportunity," Tasmin said quietly. "I'm also thinking of another. When the attack started, remember what happened first?"

"The attacks on the Line."

"Attacks, but with no nuclear detonations."

"I don't…" James was confused.

"Look, we know this thing didn't work in the long-term— some ships were able to get their systems back on line. The cylons had to hit fast and hard, and that meant they needed to have surprise. The Line's stations have automated FTL pod beacons, and one of the things that triggers an _automatic_ deployment is the detection of nuclear weapons. As is was, almost an hour passed before people realized it wasn't just some weird glitch, and even if they did, they figured that a raptor would have jumped back."

"So?"

"So maybe they didn't kill the ships— if they stuck to First War Doctrine, they would have boarded, killed the crew, and then left the ship in case they needed it. Cylons can use our equipment after all."

"How would we find them?"

"The Line stations kept transmitting and we've got the FLTCOM records— we know their last vector and location and if they got turned off the same way everyone else did…"

"They're drifting dead."

"There may even be people onboard who are still alive," James' father mused. "After all, if you don't have spacesuits and are in a sealed chamber, and no help is coming…"

"Yeah. Hell they may not even know…"

James paused. Every moment they stayed was a risk. But so was just leaving. _And if we can get extra crew… God, we need enough people to staff some of these ships and more importantly people who aren't likely to panic._

"Of course…" his father continued, a measuring tone in his voice, "this wouldn't have anything to do with a desire to find some fleet grade officer?"

"If we do you should give thanks to the Gods," Tasmin replied. "We need all the expertise we can get."

"Okay, Doeg…can we do it?"

"Do what? Find 'em? No idea," Doeg said. "For all we know the toasters left timed nukes and we're just looking for plasma clouds. If they can get the computer systems running— well, you can't fight 'em, or run 'em full time, but I heard an engineer aboard the Pegasus brag that 4 guys could fly her. The transports? Depends on just how badly they've been stripped. You know as well as I do that half the decom yards made a profit on the side selling the ships. There's also the issue of crewing them, but they're transports— assuming you're willing to go with shuttling engineering repair crews from ship to ship, the Lybocks can _fly_ with about 25 men…they can't shoot their guns, but they can fly."

"We could use the smugglers for the Line…" James mused. "They're next to invisible at any distance, and the cylons probably don't think that there's much in the way of active resistance…and if they do, they're focusing on remaining resistance around the planets."

"Risky."

"Anything we _do_ is risky."

"If we're going to take such risks, may I add another one to the pile?" Markson asked.

"What is it?"

"Our legacy."

TBC.


	5. Staffing Issues

_If you want to know what terror is, it's being sat down in front of a battlestar's fire control plotting board and told to learn it. Just a week before, I'd been thinking about if I could afford a glimmersilk gown for the ball. Glimmersilk was hard to get for a 15-year-old student. On the other hand, you've never seen it outside of the Museum of the Lost Colonies. But, a week later, after we made the first jump, I find out that my good scores got me promoted to become part of the Colonial Military, or the Boss' Pirate Band, depending on who you asked. I'm surprised I survived. No. Check that, I'm surprised that the fire control section's trainer survived, especially with our first drill where I messed up the IFF codes and…destroyed our own flight group (simulated). I thought he was going to die of apoplexy. Of course, six months later I told him I was pregnant but by that time he'd come to expect stuff like that from the fire control section. _

_A View From the Bridge: One Terrified Girl's Journey Into Adulthood. _

_Vice Admiral Jennifer Will (ret.) 98PF, New Taurus University Press. _

* * *

Battlestar _Athena_

The CIC was impressive, even with a lot of the panels dark. It would have been more impressive if there were more people in it. James didn't have the ability to stay in his office, and the Athena was going to be one of their big guns.

"_Athena_ class, everything unnetworked. Good news, it laughs at computer viruses," Colonel Tasmin said. "Bad news, we're going to need a lot of people."

"We have 'em."

"Not like you think… a fully crewed battlestar like this needs at least 5,000 crew, including flight group." Tasmin looked pensively at the controls. "Oh sure you can get along with less, but if you start taking damage…"

"We train the people," James said.

"Yeah, I love our Dean. The young can learn…" She gestured at another officer. "Firedog!"

"Yes, Ma'am?"

"How long did it take you to qualify for viper ship ops?"

"Two years flight school."

"And before?"

"Two years after enlistment." He said.

"We got some fifteen-year-olds. Need 'em to be qualified in a month, what do you say?"

"Can I shoot them in the head? It'll be kinder."

"You mean you can't?" James asked. He'd largely left training to people who knew what they were doing, but he'd also expected to have a few more people to choose from.

"Vipers aren't like your dad's aircar. They don't have nice computers that never let you get anywhere close to the design tolerances. It is _very_ possible to put a viper into the kind of spin that results in the deck crew having to hose the pilot out. I've seen it." The pilot gestured at the empty flight control section. "Not to mention that a viper pilot is only as good as the people manning the air control and CIC. You want to train a 15 or 17-year-old, or hell a full adult to by rote, say the right things to get a viper down in one piece when everything is going right? I can do that…maybe. In combat when you're having to juggle hot landings and takeoffs so they don't interfere with the flak zone, remember who can wait and who is at bingo fuel and air, keep track of fifty different things at once…" the pilot made an expressive gesture. "This ain't _Commander Jax and the Battlestar Heroic._ We try that and the cylons will just have to stand off and watch us kill our own flight group." He gestured at the ship around them, "Good news, we've got a full air wing and local defense— call it 750 viper qualified pilots total."

"Bad news, no we don't." James replied. "The same thing you said about the kids applies _everywhere." _Viper pilots were the elite of the elite after all, and that meant that they were exactly the kind of people that would be needed on the various ships of the fleet.

"Okay…" Firedog muttered. "That doesn't change the problem, boss." Tasmin raised on eyebrow at the pilot's unconscious acceptance of James' title. "And it's not just pilots— it's deck crews as well… I hate to keep being a killjoy but a battlestar normally has at least a _year's_ work up period. That's not finishing it physically— it's completed. It just took that long before the fleet was confident that the crew wouldn't break it."

"We don't have a year."

"I know, but…" The pilot started pacing.

"Look," he finally said. "Unless we get jumped on by a LOT of basestars, 200 vipers should be enough— we can crew that, especially once we finish transferring to the battlestars."

James nodded. The Marine transport had been too seriously damaged to remain usable, so the Marines were splitting their forces between the two older armed transports and the battlestars.

"So— we stick with that and use the others to staff the warships. It's still not a _good _idea, but manning guns and missile batteries requires a more specialized skillset then piloting a viper. That means it's easier to start people off with rote training and bring 'em up to speed. Don't get me wrong, it's going to suck and suck _hard_ compared to a trained crew, but since we're just trying to buy enough time to run…"

"Good job," James nodded. "Get some people and see who you need."

"Even if that works…" Tasmin said, "This still isn't a good combat group."

"I hope we can get some time to make it one— but everyone we lose is a sunk cost. I don't _want_ to fight Colonel. I want to get away so that we can start again. If anything…" he dropped his voice, "I'm happy it's so clear. One of my waking nightmares has been someone looking at all our shiny stuff and deciding we can take back the Colonies."

"One day we will."

"Yeah, but that'll be a long time after you and I are dead. Of old age, hopefully."

TBC.


	6. Viewpoint From the Other Side

Leonis Orbit:

* * *

_Behold the Glory of the Cylon Race!_ Todd thought to himself. The One listened to the others speaking about their victory, or rather their_ incomplete _victory.

"We will destroy the Galactica and its fleet." A Six was stating, "God wills it!" A few others nodded. Todd didn't say anything. After all, the others could blather about God all they wanted. Not having had his memories turned inside out, Todd knew better. This was more about his older brother's need to punish mommy and daddy.

Not that Todd had much use for them either. But this meaningless vengeance was…wasteful.

_Wasteful or not, it has to be finished. The humans certainly won't lie around and let us get another victory like this— they have to be broken._

"Before you finish celebrating, I'd point out that 'god' has not helped us with a number of vanished ships," Todd said.

_That's putting it mildly. _The Colonial navy might have died, but dozens, perhaps hundreds of ships had fled some of them alone, some of them in small groups. Most of them had only postponed their doom, but some hadn't. Light military ships, at least _two_ battlestars, long-range survey ships…

And this.

Todd gestured at the image he'd called up of the _Defender. _

_"_It's a pirate ship, and completely inconsequential." Todd's personal trial, his Six second in command, said. "It appeared, attempted to help two ships and then fled."

"No. It _withdrew_ when its mission was accomplished." Todd ran his hand through the data stream and pulled up another image.

"What's that?" A Three asked.

"This is the Leonis Institute for Higher Education of Young Ladies." Todd increased the magnification from the passing raider. "You'll notice that there are two heavy transports in front of the school. The next pass from a raider showed an _empty building complex._" The last came out as a snarl.

"Fleeing?"

"If so, it was suspiciously well organized." Todd commented. "This isn't the only one, and the centurions haven't finished their checks yet, but someone dropped down and rescued people— a lot of people. Evidence indicates that they were affiliated with the defender."

"And? One ship, not even a battlestar…"

"But organized. That's dangerous." Todd started pacing. "I know that God has mandated that we win…" _Boy I really enjoy had that makes the Sixes grind their teeth, "_But we got our asses kicked. Nagala took out 12 basestars— _twelve!_ Between that and other losses, we're down to about 90 combat capable basestars. Even if you add our support craft…that's a lot." _If it hadn't been for the CNP virus, the humans would be celebrating, not us. We won because they became arrogant. I wish everyone else would realize that goes both ways. _

"And the humans have nothing. Even if they could fight, they have no factories, no industry, no ability to replace killed soldiers…" Six stated, her nostrils flaring.

"Unless they go somewhere else. There are 400 _billion _stars in the galaxy. If they get lost, we'll never find them and then they'll be the ones who can put together the plans for an assault. I didn't like this attack plan, but we're committed now. None of you have bothered to study the humans. I have, and there's no more dirty concept in their language than someone who strikes from hiding or at people who think they're at peace. We've done both. They will never, ever, forgive us."

"What do you want us to do?" A five asked.

"How about cut the party and start trying to find out where _these," _Todd pointed at the image of the children, "went. Find out if they're linked to that Defender and if so how…and let's _try_ to be a bit more successful than our people have been with _Galactica._"

_And hope my elder brothers obsession doesn't screw us all over._ The other models were ignorant, of course. That was the point of the coup. And that meant that they were doubly ignorant of why there were so few ones. His elder brother had started the coup by making certain the Ones were on his side…and boxing those who were not. Todd had survived by talking very, very fast.

"But it doesn't matter does it?" he murmured to himself. What he told the others was correct, after all. The humans never _would_ forgive this. They couldn't and if they escaped they'd always intend on coming back, out of simple self preservation if for no other reason.

So he really was trapped, with no alternative but to see the whole miserable process out.


	7. Shopping Trip

Shopping Trip

* * *

_I can't believe he agreed to this_, Captain Osis Walters thought for the tenth time. Of course, the _Colonel_ had also agreed with it. So his company was heading towards _Virgon_ of all places.

And for what?

A secret weapon that would destroy the cylons?

Nope.

A hidden store of spaceships?

Of course not.

No, what he and his men were being sent to risk their lives for was a bunch of books…and seeds.

* * *

"Ma'am, I'm sorry, I could swear I heard you say we're going to Virgon for seeds and books."

"Yes Captain you did, and enough with the lip," Tasmin said. She'd chosen to have the meeting in her office. Outside, there was low sound as the Marines moved everything they could to the other ships of the fleet. By the time they were done, the hopelessly crippled transport would be little more than a hulk.

"May I ask why?"

"Certainly. We're leaving. We have normal plants, but no agro cruisers and a dayliner's gardens aren't exactly stocked with the seeds that made civilization…"

"I…"

"Do you like your underwear?"

"What?" Osis blinked at that.

"Your underwear, the nice stuff made of cotton. The plant we don't have any seeds for." Tasmin frowned. "I was set up to tell the Dean to get his precious stuff himself, but he was right. Let's assume we find a world. It probably has never been visited by humans, which means we may have to make it suitable to live in— and that means plants, animals, all the stuff you need to create an environment. To say nothing about needing it on the trip."

"And books?" Osis said, "I can see the plants now, but books? Don't we have a school with an online library?"

"Flying school and it doesn't have everything." Tasmin leaned forward. "This doesn't go out of the room, Captain, understood?"

"Yes Ma'am."

"If the cylons could infiltrate our battlestars, do you think they would have any difficulty with a silly little civilian database? The library you're going for was a repository library— and everything there is on microfiche. Tiny little photographic cards that are tremendously primitive and user unfriendly, but are not bothered by things like computer viruses… So we can be certain that the information is real, and not something a cylon put in to lead us down a blind alley when we're trying to rebuild our civilization…and as for the other stuff, it'd be sort of nice to know our history so we can tell the kids, wouldn't it?"

_It would be nicer If I don't die on this operation,_ Osis thought.

"What about other survivors?"

"Your main mission is recovery— if you can get the survivors, do so, but not at risk of your mission… that being said, Captain, any information about surviving populations on Virgon would be welcome."

"What do we know about cylons?"

"We had a raptor pop in and out— at least 4 basestars, and some support ships— unknown configurations."

_That's not a lot…_ Osis thought. The popular view was, of course that commanding the high orbitals meant nothing could slip onto a planet. As with most examples of popular wisdom, it was wrong. Finding something in space was difficult, finding something trying to avoid being found, like the Pathfinder's stealth dropships, was very hard, although not impossible.

"Also, the raptor shows that lots of upper atmosphere junk is still falling— that will make things even worse for anyone trying to maintain a planet watch, but I won't lie, it's a very dangerous mission."

"I think 'very dangerous' is going to apply to just about everything we do from now on. Space support?"

"None."

That was unpleasant.

"We've go one fully crewed and _combat_ effective warship— _Big Stick_. We can't risk it. More importantly, a warship is likely to bring the cylons from all over the system." Tasmin shrugged, "In fact, I think you'll be safer without _Big Stick._ It can't help you against what it might bring down."

"Go in, get the stuff, and get out." Osis shrugged. "Men would prefer it be kill toasters, but they're not suicidal. Any intelligence on ground conditions?"

"The repositories were clear of the main fallout. We can't be 100 percent certain, but it looks like the cylons used salted weapons, but the weapons were designed to produce short halflife products. They'll frack up the planet, kill anyone who can't get out of the fallout belts, but won't kill the world."

"Fine. I'll get my company ready— no civilians?"

"The dean wanted to accompany you, but I convinced him it would be better to stay home. You know what you are supposed to get and I bet the Dean would remember all sorts of things that you might try and get once you landed. Best to avoid the temptation."

* * *

_And now I'm here._ Osis was sitting in the cramped cockpit of the Nighthawk stealth dropship. They were expensive beasts having to be invisible both in space and in the atmosphere, while also being able to carry troops and equipment. Pathfinder units were generally lightly equipped, but the Nighthawks still had enough room for small vehicles and supplies. They were also damned expensive and Osis was currently using the half of the regiment's _Nighthawks._

Very likely half of the total remaining Nighthawks in the universe.

They had come out of jump with a vector designed to bring them into Virgon's atmosphere without forcing them to use betraying thrusters. It took longer than a normal flight, but pathfinder units weren't normal.

Element one was his group and they'd be heading to the biological repository, smack dab in the middle of nowhere. According to the Dean, that had been a deliberate choice, after the destruction of several biological repositories in the First Cylon War. Element two was heading for the library, located approximately 150 miles away, again in the middle of nowhere, again for the same reasons.

"Landing in ten," the pilot told him, her clipped voice reminding him of just how tight the op was going to be.

"Good. I'll be in the compartment."

Inside the troop compartment were the 48 pathfinders. None of them had the weapons they'd trained with to fight smugglers. Nope it was back to good old anti-cylon weapons, high caliber assault rifles with underslung launchers, and drum fed squad support guns firing small shaped charge projectiles. Hopefully they wouldn't need them.

"Okay, boys and girls!" he shouted out, "Here's where we start getting some payback. The toasters want us dead, we're going to take what we need to live right out from under their noses. You ready?" The growl that answered him was all he needed to hear. "Okay, remember-_Pathfinders!"_

_"First In!" t_he return shout answered.

The sky was dark, heavy clouds illuminated from beneath by the fires of Lais City, the third largest city on Virgon, and on that was still burning. The NVG cams had shown the horror of the roads out of the city, cars and buses riddled with machine gun fire, people cut down where they'd tried to flee. Osis conquered his anger, and reminded himself what the most important datum was: the cylons had an extensive ground element available.

"Coming up on the target," the pilot said. Then they felt the shock as the landing gear hit the pavement. The doors opened and the first team went out. Osis had considered an airdrop, but they were pressed enough for time and an airdrop had every chance of turning into a fiasco with squads scattered hither and yon.

When he came out, he looked around, the NVG goggles turning night to green-lit day.

The repository was buried in the side of a mountain. A all too mundane parking lot surrounded them, empty of course. Osis doubted whether or not any guards or employees would have been worried about being fired for deserting their posts. A big sign read: VIRGON BIOLOGICAL REPOSITORY. Underneath that, in a cheerful font was the slogan: 'Protecting our valuable natural resources!'.

"Okay, team one, get in there and open doors. Team two, get the generators out— we'll need to run the internal transfer systems. Rest, perimeter duty." The Dean had left them with plenty of documentation— the repository was separated into a number of vaults that had automated waldos and transfer carts— the idea was to minimize the risk of someone getting his grubby hands on biological samples and wrecking them. There were manual routes, but that'd take far too long, so they had to hope that the computers hadn't been fried by the EMP. Good news, so far as anyone knew the computers weren't part of the larger world net which should rule out any cylon problems.

A few minutes later, Osis got the report that the power generators were hooked up and it looked like everything was running. Soon, marines were coming out in little hand trucks with large sealed boxes,full of everything from grass seeds to whale sperm and ova, although Osis wasn't quite certain how _that_ was going to help.

* * *

"We've picked up activity on the surface," the Six told Todd as he entered the command post.

"Insurgent?"

"No. We almost didn't see them, but a centurion team buried in one of our killzones detected a landing _here_-" Todd leaned down and looked at the map.

"A biological repository…now that _is_ interesting."

"We can kill them-"

"No…no I don't think so. I believe that God has a _plan_ for them."

_Okay, now I'm certain. That never gets old,_ Todd realized. Best of all, Six had to smile and take it.

"Are there any survivors in the area?"

"Here…and here…" Six pointed out. Todd had avoided bombarding the planet— the others wanted the Colonies to eventually regenerate and for that matter, the real estate was very useful. The major cities, military bases and any small town that looked dangerous, certainly, but nobody was interested in creating a wasteland.

More importantly, it was wasteful. For that reason, he'd started tracking the survivor groups they could find. They tended to attract people the cylons might have missed, and better yet, found resources that might otherwise go to other, more dangerous groups…and once they were large enough, the centurions could sweep in and kill them. Other centurions had been ordered to bury themselves near likely shelter points, where they could drive other groups of survivors. Very neat.

_And in this case, very useful._

"This group here… 120?"

"About. They've been scavenging in the outskirts of Lais. They have access to anti-radiation medication."

"More importantly, there's a Six and a Four keeping track on them… tell them to dirty their faces and join up."

"What?"

"It's small enough so the unknowns, who I will bet my good looks are tied to that _Defender, _will take them back home. Two humanoids gives us an excellent chance of finding them once they get home— tell them they should flip a coin for who gets to kill themselves to bring us the good news."

"Are you cert-"

"Oh for fraks sake!" Todd exploded. "People do not grab seeds if they have nowhere to go! If we kill them, we're no closer to finding their base, so we'll just make certain they lead us to it!"

"There could be others with them…"

"Who are probably waiting for orders, like good little followers of the One." Six visibly sniffed at that and left.

_Elder Brother, it would have made things a lot easier if you would have waited until the Five told us how to make small FTL coms…_ As it was, the resurrection technology, especially the part that let a humanoid cylon send its entire memory back to a resurrection ship, without any use of high energy systems, remained a mystery. The best they'd been able to do had been the very large FTL units on basestars and slightly better FTL jump detectors than the colonials had, but still far behind what the Five had.

Todd shook his head. No sense in wishing for the world.

* * *

"Sir?"

"Yeah?" Osis asked the sergeant.

"We've got a small convoy, about a hundred people moving up the road. Light trucks and cars."

"Hells." The loading had taken most of the night and would hopefully be done soon, but now Osis had a complication.

"Any pursuit?"

"None that we can see… but well, they're driving with their lights off. That's it, sir."

"Yeah," _Civilians. They see some idiotic action movie and congratulate themselves. _Ooh, I'm driving with my lights off, no cylon would ever think of that!_ Right now, the cylons were probably having a ball watching them… and pretty soon watching us._

"Get a LAV, and head down to them. Tell them if they want a ride off this rock, they will come here, and we'll take them. Not their luggage, not their pets, and not their cars. Them. They don't like it, they can stay."

"Yessir!" As the sergeant left, Osis turned to another marine. "Load everything up. We'll put the people in the ships wherever we can fit them."

"Understood."

A few minutes later, the convoy arrived, full of hysterically grateful people.

"Who's in charge here?" Osis bellowed. A short, fat man came forward.

"Reckon I'm as close as you're going to get… I was the fire chief in town and…"

"Good. Why are you here?"

"We were running out of antirad medication and this lady-" he gestured at a platinum blond in ragged clothes, "said she'd heard about a place out here where we could hide until the worst of the fallout was gone."

"It's your lucky day, then. My men will show you where to go."

"It's destiny's plan…" the blond breathed out.

"Don't know about that, but let's go before the cylon's plan hits u-"

The bullet made an ugly cracking sound as the fire chief's head blew up, spraying blood and bone all over Osis and the blond. She screamed and (showing good sense) ran for the nearest transport. Osis dropped behind a handtruck, dragging a woman who seemed to think that screaming loud enough would deflect bullets down beside him.

"Contact! Woods, 500 meters!" The cry came over the tacnet.

_Five hundred meters? How the hell-_ Then Osis saw. The fraking centurions had been _buried!_

"They knew…" He muttered, they must have detected them on the way in, and had infiltrated and buried themselves… NVG wouldn't pick 'em up and for that matter, powered down you wouldn't detect them by heat. _Godsdamn. I'd better be more on the ball next time. I bet they were waiting for the gang we just rescued and didn't want to give themselves away._

Meanwhile the marines were opening up— the heavy rifle bullets knocked one down, but then the heavy machine gun opened up, a stream of tracers saying a centurion in half. Not that it mattered. They might beat this gang, but Osis bet his ass that half the cylons on the _world_ were on the way.

"Coms, tight beam— tell the library people it's time to leave!"

"They're already packing up sir."

"Good, on to the transports—go!"

Two marines were cut down as they retreated. Suppressive fire in this case wasn't— the centurions advanced into it like they didn't care, but there weren't enough of them to close before the transports took off.

"Thank gods they were looking for refugees and not marines…" Osis muttered to another marine. "I bet that's the only damned reason they didn't have SAMs."

"Coming up on jump-" the pilot said and then the stomach churning feeling of an FTL jump ran though the ship, "and here we are!"

"Where?" the blond asked.

"Somewhere safe," Osis replied, as he looked out, seeing the other elements flight along side his flight. _We lost people…but it was a hell of a successful op._ "Somewhere safe," he repeated.

TBC


	8. Finding Rides

_Everyone born after Landing likes to talk about how our fleet was a self-contained world. Then they turn around and ask why the boss risked so much to get more ships. That's because they really don't understand— they live on a world, and think the fleet was like that, only indoors. The fact is, you can never have too much margin in space. As it was, we almost didn't make it. Space is big, Kiddos, and you want to pack a lunch._

_"You've Got to be Fraking Me. An Idiot's Guide to Surviving the End of Everything"_

_Doeg Maska 36PF, Amateur Press_

* * *

"Why do we always get the hard jobs?" Terrence moaned.

"Because you've sinned terribly and the Gods are punishing you," Carla muttered. "The question is, why do they do this to _me?"_

They weren't on the _Rattletrap. _The ship they were one was a smuggler, all DRADIS damping fiber and muffled drives, wrapped around a compartment that normally carried drugs, but now carried 24 men and women. Behind them, there were seven other ships.

"Coming up on jump now," Terrence said.

"Roger. Shut off all external lights and polarize the screens." Carla replied. She'd done smuggling runs before and you'd be amazed at how many times the light from the cockpit would trip a sensor. "Gentlemen and ladies," she called over the intercom. "This is our first stop. If we don't find anything else here, we continue. If we run into active cylons, mission's a bust and we go home."

"3, 2, 1…jump!"

Moments later, the craft was drifting, engines silent, on a vector that would hopefully take it away from anyone who might have seen the tell tale flash.

"I'm getting…nothing on passive-wait. Shit." Terrence stared at the readout, showing the front half of a battlestar. The rear was a shattered mess with fractures running up and down the hull.

"Internal explosions. Nothing survived _that." _He said.

"Reset the clock. We have a lot of places to be," Carla muttered.

* * *

Six jumps later, Carla was beginning to think it was a waste of time. The cylons had destroyed the fleets at two locations while the other four were empty, possibly showing that the warships had managed to escape or had maneuvered in such a way as to change their vector radically before they were shut down.

"Coming up on jump seven. Be still my heart," Carla muttered.

When they Jumped, Terrence whooped in elation.

"Contacts!" He said. "Many small contacts! Four large contacts!"

"Vipers and raptors…" Carla breathed. "Do you think…"

"It looks like they were hit by missiles, but some could still be alive."

"We'll do flybys." Carla muttered. "Keep your hand on the FTL switch. If there are raiders, this is when they'll go after us."

But their were none. Or at least none that made their presence known. Some of the vipers and raptors looked to have maintained their life support, and in at least one case Carla saw a figure wave.

"Okay, group." She said over the laser coms to the other smugglers. "We've got four intact ships. We're going to board by twos— watch for boobytraps and active centurions. Make certain to shut down the fire control— we don't want anything to turn the guns on our guys. Seriously people, _make certain_ they're off line before you jump."

"This was Taskgroup 32," A voice said behind them. The two pilot turned to look at the engineer. "I served on the _Inflexible." _He gestured at the nearest ship, a bulky looking craft about half again the size of a Valkyrie. There was another one behind it.

"Lot's of landing platforms…"

"Its not a line ship— the Valkyries had problems with long term support and storage, so the _Inflexible_ was designed to provide raptor and shuttle support for 'em. Not a lot of ship to ship guns, but a good deal of vipers and raptors and depot level maintenance facilities. They've even got the same machine shops the _Pegasus_ has."

Carla could see that the other two ships were Andromeda class gunstars. _Probably held back as a reserve._

"So…"

"It was deployed to the line to provide support for other ships… I bet they didn't even have a chance to go on alert. That's why they're still bunched up." the engineer looked angry. "They deserved better."

"Okay, we're dropping you off at the dorsal lock and doing SAR ops. You get those things operational or let us k now if you can't."

"Gotcha."

* * *

Jan had been a typical naval engineer, working his college debt off courtesy of the Colonial Fleet. He wasn't a career officer, nope, Jan was going to make it to captain, do his 20 and then get a nice cushy job. Maybe with a corner office looking at Caprica Park.

Only Caprica Park was gone, along with his future. Like it or not, he was career now.

The _Inflexible_ was quiet. They'd gone in the secondary airlock, but had only seen bodies. The automated fast response airlocks had obviously done their job— they'd all opened. It wasn't clear if anyone had managed to close up their compartments in time to survive.

"We got power?"

"Negative sir…the computers are completely frozen. What do we do?"

"Go to the main CPU center, and _manually _pull it. Do the same with the others and isolate power and jump." _This thing is going to maneuver like a pig… "_Landing Team, this is Jan— any signs of survivors?"

"We're having to go compartment by compartment sir."

"Watch out for toasters."

"Understood sir."

_How the hell did they get this worm into the computer?_ Jan wondered. It looked like it had run through the entire ship. But command had been absolutely paranoid about the CNP— in fact, the secure memory modules used to install the CNP had been more heavily guarded than nuclear ordnance…

"Sir?"

"Yeah?"

"We've got the computer pulled. I think we can selectively route lifesupport to the working areas."

"Good man."

* * *

Doeg frowned. The depot yards had been attacked, the main facility smashed, but the drifting reserve ships were mostly there. A few looked to be missing, whether they'd been taken by the station crew, destroyed by the cylons, or lost at some earlier point, he didn't know.

But there were ten gorgeous heavy transports, and if he could get them working…

_Big if._

"Take us in." Doeg ordered. "Anything on sensors?"

"Nothing."

"You drop us and the supply pods off and jump back out."

"Boss said-"

"Boss isn't here. You can't protect us all, and the only thing a ship does here is call the cylons. If we can't get these ships running, we'll call you back or take the raptor."

"Understood."

The first ship Doeg entered still had scars from long-ago battles in the first war. Fortunately, as with all ships, there was a status folder next to the main airlock for the benefit of any inspectors.

"Okay boys," he said, "According to this, the jump drive's components are on the cargo deck adjacent to it. Tanya, the keys were at the central station, so we're going to have to ran a bypass if we can get it running. Mike, get the hanger doors open so our escape raptor can board."

"You got it, Doeg."

"I'd hate to live here." Tanya muttered, looking at the scarred metal of the corridor.

"You would?" Doeg asked. "These babies had armor on 'em— not battlestar, but a lot more than a yacht has. They've got flak. They've got compartmentalization that doesn't go poof if someone looks at it cross-eyed. I expect the boss is going to see how much of the civvie ships he can dock here." He held one hand up to his earpiece as the other crew members penetrating into the ship gave their reports.

"Good. Looks like they left most of the parts here. Let's get to work— when the tanker shows up I want to be able to jump immediately."

* * *

"Boss? Raptor just dropped by."

"What is it?" James asked, as the others paused. He would have liked to go with the missions, but there was no time. The anchorage was a hive of transports moving goods from ship to ship— some ships had been stuffed to the decks with goods, while others were nearly empty. It fell to James and his people to try and equalize the loads— not, mind you prepare them for a long journey, but just equalize them so if they lost one ship, they didn't find that it was the only ship with fortha vaccine on it.

"Doeg's at the anchorage— he can get eight ships for you— two were nogos, irreparable damage to the drives."

"Good news. What about the line."

"So far, we've found six ships… Two _Valkyries_, two _Inflexibles _and two _Andromedas_.

_Combined with our own forces that gives us a lot of heavy iron…now if we only had the people to crew it._

"Any survivors?"

"They're not certain— Carla said they've found about 400, but they're mostly pilot and people from the outer parts of the ships. The ship's computers are down so they want to search them once they've got them back here.

"That's good. Tell them to come back. If they find anything else, tag the location but…we don't even have the crew to handle those."

"Okay boss."

_Gods above, six ships…_ Granted they'd had foreknoweldge of their vectors…but still, maybe they were getting some much needed luck— especially if those ships had many surviving crew members.

TBC


	9. Leaving Town

The anchorage was becoming increasingly crowded. Doeg had managed to reactivate 8 Lybock Bay transports, adding to their current ten to make an entirely respectable fleet of 18 heavy transports, their battlestar sized masses looming over the smaller ships. In the middle sat the Archeron and the Athena, surrounded by the smaller cruisers and defenders. It looked very impressive, but looks were deceiving, Doeg knew. Few of those ships had operational cannon and those that did had few crewmembers to man them.

"Tell the Colonial Heavies to dock with the Lybocks," He repeated. "Heavy movers to the secondary bays— crews are to dismount immediately and help our people with jump prep."

"What about the new ones?"

"What, so they can enjoy freezing— they haven't even had time to _warm up_ yet." Doeg snarled. "Just the jump and sublight drive crews for those."

"Message from the Line group— they're coming back with ships."

Doeg grabbed the sheet and then made a sound between a groan and curse. "Six ships. Where the _frak_ are we supposed to get crewmembers for them?"

"They have crewmembers that they rescued."

"And likely more trapped in compartments, and we don't have time to find them," Doeg replied.

"Okay— why is the boss moving out so quickly?"

"Our little library and seed shopping trip ran into cylons. Cylons who knew we were there and must have noticed that we were flying short ranged dropships. He wants to leave. Now."

"But they can't get there, can they?" The aide started to look nervous.

"I dunno— but some of those attacks had raiders, _ftl _raiders dropping right out on battlestars— really, really accurate navigation work. It could be that they were just lucky or spammed a bunch of raiders, or it could be they're more accurate than we are.

"What do you think?"

"I think computer technology in the Colonies has been more or less stagnant for 40 years, and the cylons are a computer based lifeform. What do you think?"

* * *

"Carla get your ship down to Tarim Mountain. We need you to assist with loading transfer, and bridge ops."

"What are you talking about?" Carla said. She'd jumped after the last of the Battlestars into what seemed to be utter chaos.

"Boss wants every civvie on a transport. They're docking the little ships inside, and the big ships will fly with minimal crew, but those civvie ships have no armor— they're paper mache. Tarim Mountain needs extra crowd control and tech assistance. Upper bay is open."

"Unders-FRAK!" Carla swore as a tramp freighter cut in front of her, heading for the bay without even bothering to clear the airspace. "We'll be lucky if we don't kill ourselves."

* * *

_Big Stick_.

The fleet was impressive, but unfortunately most of it was unmanned. It would take _time _to get ready.

"We could stay here," Tasmin said over the line from the battlestar _Athena_. She was occupied transferring the last of the equipment from her ship to one of the two Marine Transports he'd bought. Those ships at least had their light KEW point defense systems armed, although how well they'd work was open to some debate. The majority of her viper crews were on the old battlestar, since it was one of the two most heavily armored units in the fleet.

"No. They knew. If they track us, they could launch an attack. This place is safe so long as its secret. Otherwise, it's a trap."

"You think they can track us?"

"You think they can't? We lost 25 billion people because we decided they couldn't hack our computer systems."

"You're spooked."

"Damn right I am. Our people rescue someone from the cylons and he kills himself ten minutes after he gets here? That's creepy and spook worthy. Call me superstitious, but it's too damned easy to forget that we're sitting on the edge of a volcano here. We can do five or six fast jumps and be far, far away from where the cylons are and then that gives us some time to get set up."

"You're the boss," Tasmin replied.

"About that, you finish the mods on your old ship?"

"She's ready to go."

* * *

_Tarim Mountain _

_Chaos._ Carla looked around. She'd sent the rest of the crew to the engine room, but she was heading towards the bridge. The ship's air had the tang of a ship that hadn't been crewed for a long while, not being overloaded by the scent of human fear. She shoved a richly dressed woman out of her way and headed further in.

"IF YOU ARE MOVING INWARDS, YOU STAY TO THE RIGHT! THAT MEANS YOU, AM I FRAKING SPEAKING **CYLON?!" **A marine was trying to direct traffic with a bullhorn, with little success. An increasingly angry snarl was developing around the axial access corridor. Some people had decided they wanted to come back and talk and others were still moving in and the shoving was turning to angry words. Carla looked around, grabbed the marine's bullhorn and did some adjustments. Suddenly a nearly supersonic, teeth loosening squeal erupted. People grabbed their ears and ducked down. Carla looked around.

"All RIGHT!" She bellowed into the silence. "Listen the frak up because I am going to say this one time and if you don't get it, the private will shoot you!" Next to her, the private blinked.

"This is a big ship, there is enough room for you. Right now, EVERYONE to the right, move into the ship, that's safer. I don't give a damn if you don't like the rooms, or want to talk to us about something I could care less about-YOU!" Carla bellowed at one man. "AM I SPEAKING A FOREIGN LANGUAGE!"

"There's no furniture, our ships are safer!" He shouted.

"Really? The ships I can put holes in with a pistol? There are _cylons_ coming. These are military ships, with military armor. Now get your ass back where I told you to go, or-" Carla reached down to her own sidearm. "I will save the private the trouble!" Soon, he wilted and turned back.

"Ma'am, I can't shoot-"

"Don't worry private, I know." Carla said in a low whisper. The kid must have just graduated infantry school, she realized. Normally this would be handled by at least a corporal, but Carla had a feeling corporals were light on the ground right now. Time for some…improvisation. She looked around and saw a line of teens in some sort of uniform who seemed to be calm. "You, get over here!"

"Ma'am?"

"Where are you from?"

"Gravis Preparatory Academy," the first teen said, frowning as he looked at Carla and the marine.

"You're not panicking."

"Would it help?"

"Good answer. Congratulations, by the authority vested in me by absolutely nobody, I hereby declare you provisional members of the Colonial Marines. Your first job is to help the private keep traffic flowing. If you mouth off or make me look bad, it will piss off the Boss. You do not want to piss off the Boss."

"Yes Ma'am!" the students chorused.

"Ma'am, you can't make them-"

"Of course I can. Provisional can be revoked by the first person with authority after all, and you heard me. Unless "absolutely nobody" happens to be a general, we're safe. Don't think of it as breaking the rules; think of it as giving you all the headaches of a squad leader without the pay or respect."

"_Thank _you ma'am." The marine frowned, but then turned and looked at his new squad. "Okay, you three get over there to the primary cargo bay— the blue one, people keep trying to go back that way. Don't let 'em. You two, come with me…"

Carla was already heading for the bridge.

* * *

_"Six battlestars?_" Todd asked the newly resurrected cylon.

"That's what they were bringing in. They had two already there, the Athena and Archeron."

"That is a hell of a lot of firepower," the Six said.

"Maybe. But if it came off the line…did they say how many crew survived?"

"No. It was mostly rumor. I did see some smaller ships, cruisers and defenders."

"Wonderful. They were preparing to leave. Where?"

"I thought you needed this information as quickly as possible— but I think they were intending on leaving the Colonies."

Todd frowned. The easiest solution would be to jump into the anchorage, but they didn't have enough information for that. The telemetry from the resurrection ship had given them the general location, but pinpoint jumps into an anchorage required more than that, which is why they were so closely guarded.

_I could throw more raiders…_ Toss a hundred, or a thousand raiders in, and some would get through. The problem was that they didn't have that many, not with rumors of other ships and orphaned units. _They didn't get all of the Line's ships and some of those ships likely managed to get their FTL back online or at least made blind jumps._ Which meant he couldn't expend raiders for no gain, especially when, if the Colonials' had any sense at all, they'd turned the jump point into a killzone. It might be easy to download the raiders' minds, but you still had to build them new raiders.

Penetrating the shell around the anchorage would be difficult, especially given its effect on sensors…but he'd be able to minimize the losses.

More importantly, if any had jumped out already, it would increase the chance that raider could get a vector and rough distance for jumps during the combat.

_Relay that to other raiders and we may be able to localize their destination and keep track of them._ The cylons had better FTL detection and locating equipment than the Colonies, mostly due to superior processing power, but 'better' in this case was still the wrong side of 'crude and error prone'.

_No. We have the factories. We can afford to wait, even if they use the time wisely, every person they lose is an irrecoverable loss. After all, we're functionally immortal. They aren't. _

"Your request for six basestars has been declined," Six said. "We're to use the two we have right now."

"Did you tell them what we found?"

"Yes, but the Caprica cordon just got hit— it looks like a Valkyrie battlestar, with some cruisers. Not affiliated with the _Pegasus_."

_Another missed group. At least they're ramming their heads against a brick wall instead of leaving…_

"Fine. Fighter only attack-"

"But our basestars…"

"Are the only things with the range to support a search cordon when we're tracking this group. If we lose both basestars and they all jump, the next time we see them may be when they show up and start dropping their own bombs." We don't have enough forces right here to be certain of killing them all, which means we have to be prepared to handle a long-term search and chase. _AT which point, after much wailing and gnashing of teeth, my fellows will release the basestars that could have ended this right here. Frak. _

* * *

The bridge was chaos incarnated. Like all First War designs, the Lybock's did not use heavily networked computers…which although it protected them from infiltration, meant that more people had to handle any given evolution.

"What's the problem, Sandy?" Carla asked the acting captain, one of Carla's friends who had been selected by the Boss.

"Nothing that maybe six months couldn't fix," Sandy growled, pointing to where a group of freighter captains were puzzling over a manual jump calculator. "Half these people went to the 'push button, computer make ship GO' school. We've got some ex-military engineers, but they're all in the engine room making certain we don't blow up. Think you can handle helm?"

"It's a bit bigger than _Rattletrap_, but I'll try."

It wasn't that the helm controls were complex, Carla thought, but that there was no network of computers damping out problems and doing everything but fly the ship for you. It was computerized, every system was, but there were a number of points where Carla was the link between computers instead of just handing the job off to them…and at the best of times, a battlestar sized object did not turn on a dime.

"We're fifth in the queue," Sandy said. "The Archeron goes first, than one of the troop cruisers, then the floating school, and a cruiser. We're next."

"They're sending the Archeron first?"

"It's got…some of the KEW batteries working."

"Well at least it's a more attractive target then our little freighter."

"Yeah." Sally keyed the mike. "NOW HEAR THIS. ALL STATIONS TO PREPARE FOR SUBLIGHT MANEUVER, FOLLOWED BY AN FTL JUMP. ALL CIVILIANS, ARE TO REMAIN WHERE THEY ARE UNTIL FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS ARE GIVEN. ALL CREW MEMBERS, ACTION STATIONS, ACTION STATIONS, SET CONDITION ONE." A klaxon that Carla bet had last sounded in the first war started adding it's clangor to the sound of the bridge.

* * *

_Big Stick_

"Looks like you were wise, boss. Sensor buoys picking up raiders— at least 120."

"That's not a lot—they're probing." James muttered. "Order the ships to start jumping."

The problem was the very thing that made the anchorage safe also made it a trap. He could order every ship to jump…but half of them would end up god knows where, and contrary to fiction, misjumps did not always send you to the planet of the scantily clad Earthpeople.

"Launch our vipers, Athena is to launch her vipers." _Mostly the marine birds, with nowhere near enough deck crews, but we're not fighting, we're running. _

_The first raiders entered the anchorage. The interference from the shell had badly degraded their sensors, and it would take some time to restore them. The raiders were not concerned, as it was plain the quarry would come to them. As they cleared the shell, they sent out the CNP worm. Unsurprisingly, it had no effect. That had been in their mission briefing. The raiders detected numerous incoming vipers, in addition to extensive flak being sent out from a large escort class. Surprisingly, none of the battlestar class vessels, and few of the other ships joined in the flak barrage, indicating greater than predicted damage. That was promising._

James clenched his fist as he watched nearly two dozen raiders blow apart. It looked good, but if even one of those battlestars had been fully crewed, the raiders should have faced nearly 100% casualties.

"Athena reports her flak batteries are _finally_ ready."

"Open fire-" Suddenly the _Big Stick_ rang like a gong.

"What was that?"

"The Athena _shot_ us—minor damage, thank gods. It was with the small batteries."

"Great…you sure they're not cylons?" Someone muttered.

The com officer frowned, and nodded. "They're having problem with their IFF… _Athena Actual_ advises against using heavy batteries or missiles until they get that ironed out."

"Oh yes…" James agreed, watching as the first rank of ships started to vanish into FTL. As that happened, another group of raiders came in through the shell. James suddenly grinned. _Oh that's it, toaster. You were worried you were going to be running into fully operational battlestars and didn't want to risk massing all your forces in one strike. Smart move…but wrong move._

"What is that battlestar doing?" Six asked. Todd leaned forward, looking at the image being relayed by the raiders. The smaller ship was firing, not up to Colonial standards, but accurately enough. But the _battlestar?_ Its fire was fragmented, almost spastic, the ship itself wallowing around like the helmsman was drunk. The data feed showed another transport, followed by a Valkyrie, vanish into FTL.

_Frak Me._ They weren't just recovered battlestars, _none _of those ships were fully manned.

"Order all raiders in."

"But yo-"

"Now."

* * *

"Oh boy, boss, at least 600 raiders in bound.'

"Someone's decided to stop playing. How many more ships?"

"Two transports, Athena, and us."

_Big Stick _was intact, more or less. There were several armor penetrating hits but nothing critical. The _Athena _was also intact, and James watched as another transport vanished. Three ships.

"_Athena, _this is _Big Stick Actual,_" James paused, "I think it's time to send out our party favor."

"Understood." Tasmin didn't sound happy and James didn't push it. That ship had been her home, after all.

Beneath the Athena, surrounded by the civilian ships too large to dock and not important enough to bring, the _Turjan's _engines flared to life, the big troop transport heaving away from the shelter.

* * *

_Panicking? Once the ship was out, it would be free to maneuver… _

Todd ordered a quarter of his strike detached to deal with the troop ship.

"The battlestar and defender are moving to the jump area."

Todd nodded. The battlestar's gunfire had improved slightly, but the raiders were focusing on it, rather than on the defender. A few nuclear hits had damaged the battlestar, but not heavily.

_The Turjan's computer was not an AI. It was merely programmed with some very simple commands. Fly in this direction. Wait until a certain number of units not flying Colonial IFF closed to a certain range._

_Detonate the charges set in its fuel tanks and the nuclear weapons buried in its hanger bay. _

_When all the conditions were met, the Turjan took those actions. Without concern. _

Todd was focused on the fight around the last two ships when the sudden blaze from the Turjan almost blanked out the data feed. Nearly 60 raiders were destroyed outright, others damaged, and more importantly, the raiders pressing the attack on the last two ships faltered momentarily… long enough for the ships to recover the last of their fighters and withdraw.

"A booby trap," Todd muttered. That was unexpected.

"We lost them!" the Six snarled.

"Not for long— I've got raiders on every likely vector and our FTL drives are longer-ranged than theirs. We also cost them at least 20 vipers…and given their obvious crew problems, that's not a loss they can easily replace." He paused, "It'll take time, but we'll get them."

"And then another celebratory slaughter?"

Todd frowned. "I thought you liked that idea."

"What?" Six asked confused, "I didn't say anything."

Todd blinked. There had been nobody else around, and in fact it had been a male voice, sounding tired…and contemptuous.

_Great. In addition to everything else, mommy and daddy dearest gave us the ability to hear things when we're tired._

"Never mind. Recover all the raiders, send one basestar out to commence searching, but _do not_ engage, and send in centurions to recover anything we can use to see if they had a destination in mind."

"Very well."

* * *

**Epilogue**

The fleet had jumped 10 times in less than half a day. James groaned. That took a lot out of him and according to some reports the corridors were covered in puke in some of the transports. Still, they were about 50 light years from the Colonies. Even if the cylons had ways of tracking them, they had to be a ways behind.

_Because if they can track us in real time, we're dead. But if they could do that…they wouldn't have needed the worm. Don't get cocky, but let's remember the cylons aren't gods._

_"Big Stick,_ this is _Athena actual."_

"Go Colonel."

"We need to pause for at least six hours— these engines are good, but we don't want to blow one out. I'm going to push out a light CAP."

"Understood."

"Also, we need to start running a survey of our civilians to find out who has some sort of skill we can use. The next time we get hit, we need battlestars, not targets."

"I agree. We'll conference on that in… 30 minutes."

"On the _Athena? Big Stick's _not the place for our fleet commander."

"Well you're next in line," James pointed out.

"Which is why I'm doing my best to keep you alive," Tasmin replied. "_Athena _or_ Archeron, _your choice."

"Why do supposed second in commands always act like they're first in command," James wondered as he put the headset back down. _Still, we're alive. And that's no small thing. No small thing at all._

**_End_**

_The story will be continued in The Journey… hopefully coming soon, but I'm a freelance writer and writing for money takes priority over writing for fun._


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